[karajorma]

Okay I`m trying to add turrets to my first model. I`m going for the fenris style ones (i.e a pair of concentric octogons and no turret arm)  since they seemed easier to do.
 Only problem is that I`m not certain what to do now. All the searches I`ve run turn up how to make rotating turrets (which isn`t what I`m after this time).
  I need to know what to do in TS and then what to do in PCS and modelview  to make the turrets work.

[EdrickV]

In TS1 (I don't have any other versions) first you want to make sure from the top down view that your ship is facing left.
Select the part you want to use as a turret (it should be a seperate object) and glue it as a child to whatever it's supposed to be attached to. (Usually the main hull.) Glue as Child usually isn't immediatly visible, it's hidden in the popup menu you get when you hold down the mouse button on Glue as Sibling. (Seen at least one post where someone couldn't find Glue as Child.)
Save and convert. I use ModelView32 for editing 'cause you can see your changes. Make sure the turret submodel has an appropriate subsystem entry in it's properties. (examine any turret on a ship for examples) Go to the turrets section and create a turret, asigning both the Associated/Rotational Submodels to the same turret submodel. (This is where multi-part turrets differs.) Assign at least one firing point and a normal. Save that POF into the models folder, copy a turret entry from another ship, (preferably a ship with the same class flags, like "bomber" "capital" etc.) save the modified table and check the ship out in Fred2.

What do do when things don't work out right:
1. If the turret shows up in Fred2 but you can't assign a weapon to it, change the default weapon. (in the turret's table entry) This happens when you try to assign a weapon to a turret that the ship isn't allowed to have.

2. If the turret doesn't show up, recheck your POF and table entries. Make sure they match. Make sure the turret submodel has a subsystem definition in it's properties.

PS Any turret can be set to rotate. Multi-part turrets just rotate in two different directions.

Edit: Clarified the "default weapon"

[karajorma]

Originally posted by EdrickV
Assign at least one firing point and a normal.  

Okay this is the bit I`m having trouble with (I'd kinda guessed the rest but it's nice to know I`m right).

What numbers do I use for the fireing point and normal? I`ve had a look at the ones for other ships and they don`t seem to have any relation to the numbers I used for assigning subsytems so I`m lost as to what numbers I should use.

Edit : Nevermind. I think I`ve figured it out Thanks for the help.

[karajorma]

I guess I spoke too soon. I can glue the first turret on fine but as soon as I try to glue the second one on it glues it to NoName,1 instead of gluing it on to the hull object.

I`m fairly sure that isn`t the right thing to be gluing it to so how do I glue it onto the hull object. (I`ve done endless searches on hierarchy and gluing but found nothing)

[EdrickV]

Now that I've actually tried doing two turrets I see your problem. It is beginning to look like TrueSpace 1 only supports two levels of hierarchy. If I glue one turret object as a child to the hull it works. When I glue a second one, the first two become completely linked and it forgets that one's supposed to be a child. I think. Anyone else here have more experience with TS1 that can help with this? This is getting to be annoying.

[karajorma]

I`m not certain if it's only two levels. What appears to happen is this.

When you glue the first turret on the hierarchy looks like this

Noname,1
-Hull
--Turret01

Now you want to stick turret02 to hull but instead you get this

Noname,2
-Turret02
-Noname,1
--Hull
---Turret01

The next one gives you this

Noname,3
-Turret03
-Noname,2
--Turret02
--Noname,1
---Hull
----Turret01

etc.

I think I`m looking for

Noname,1
-Hull
--Turret01
--Turret02
--Turret03

But I've got no idea how to do it!

[EdrickV]

Not sure how you got that hierarchy thing, but it looks like you're gluing them backwards except for the first one. Glue the first one, select the object tool, select the next one, glue it to the hull, rinse and repeat.

[karajorma]

What I do is pick a turret. Click on glue as child and then click on the hull. That glues the first one down fine. When it comes to the second turret the problems start.  Every time I click on the model it glues the turret to the Hull + Previous turrets group. I have no idea how to select the hull.

I`ve tried cycling through the hierarchy after selecting turret02. I`ve tried selecting hull. Selecting the turret and then gluing it. What I`m having difficulty with is figuring out what buttons I have to press to glue it to the hull. It only lets me glue it to the group instead of the object.

[Bobboau]

glue a light to the turret
name the light and turret combo turret01
glue turret01 to the hull
convert
add a turret
set object parent and physical parent to turret01
set the firing point relitive to the turret01, remember 1 ts unit = 20 fs units
set the normal, remember this is a point relitive to the turret that it will point to as default


when gluing more turrets glue to the entire ship, do not go down to the hull level

[karajorma]

I`m starting to think I`ve got a bugged install of truespace. No one seems to understand my problem. Look at this file. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/Dropship.zip
 The model has 4 extra sub objects that it shouldn`t have. I`ve included the pof and cob files.
 I`m fairly sure that it's not right since every mod I`ve looked at (not to mention the original fs2 ships) seem to glue the objects onto the hull.

[EdrickV]

I think there are just some odd things about TS1 that didn't exist in future versions. I did an experiment. I took a cube and two cut cones. I added lights to the cones and glued them to the cube. I names the cut cones as Turret01 and Turret02, which got changed to turret,1 and turret,2. I named the combined models ship and the cube as hull. Converted the model to a POF via PCs. I now have 4 submodels: One that appears to be the combined object (ship), one for each turret (both of which started out named as turret) and the cube. (hull) PCS, it seems, even added turret subsystem data for the two turret submodels, which was nice. I think that the extra submodel may not interfere with it working in FS2, but I've yet to see what affect it might have. The lights made quite a difference in gluing though, without them I couldn't get it to do more then 2 total submodels. (1 hull, 1 turret)
Will try your model out and let you know if it works.

[karajorma]

This is really starting to bug me so I`m going to try a more general question.

I`m working in Truespace. I have a model with this hierarchy

Toplevel
-subobject1
-subobject2

I want to glue an object to subobject 2.  If I click on glue as child and then the model it will glue it to Toplevel instead. How would I glue it to subobject2?

[DTP]

Pick your main model that is already glued together,

Now press down key once now press left until only subobject2 is White colour. Now glue your object to subobect2.

You navigate the hierarchy by using up down left and right keys.

Furthermore you got it backwards. You do not pick the turret and glue to your main hull
You pick your main hull and glue the turret. Meaning you are gluing Turret as child/sibling to your main hull and not as you are doing gluing the main hull as child of the turret. Confusing yeah,

I know been there done that. .

[EdrickV]

Since you know more about what we're doing then we do, why do we keep getting extra submodels? I took a cube and two cut cones. Glued two local lights to the cut cones, glued the cut cones to the cube. Whatever order I do it in, I end up with 4 submodels. 1 seems to be just a blue line pointing nowhere in MV, the other three are the cut cones and the cube. And do you know anything about getting textures aligned right in TS1? Been getting some real odd stretching stuff (usually on the sides of objects) that I'm not sure how to fix.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by DTP
Furthermore you got it backwards. You do not pick the turret and glue to your main hull
You pick your main hull and glue the turret. Meaning you are gluing Turret as child/sibling to your main hull and not as you are doing gluing the main hull as child of the turret. Confusing yeah,

I know been there done that. .

*beats ead repeatedly against desk*

thats what you're supposed to do...I guess I'll be working on turreting again...

Oh...and it's kinda cool when you see other people here having the exact same problems as you are, so you know that you are not a total retard

[DTP]

Lights are a bit tricky, in truespace up and until Version 4.I don’t know about 5+ since I did not test it in the demo I had.

You cannot pick a SOLID object and glue a light to it, but you can pick a light and glue an object to the light. Sure, dam confusing and stupid, in essence what I’m telling the object is to follow the light, and not the light to follow the object. But in the world of Truespace, that does not matter since when you pick a group, you move the whole group until you move downwards through the hierarchy.

This means you have PRE-GLUE all your turret combos before you glue them to the main hull. Or else you will get those extra sub objects.

And this goes for every other kind of Combo.

I`m glad i could help.
------------
EDIT i almost forgot, when you glue, use glue as sibling, and not as child or else you get a new top level group.

[EdrickV]

Ok, I finally figured it out: You have to glue each turret (turret object + light) to the other turrets as siblings, then glue the combined turret group to the hull. Really odd, but it worked. Not entirely sure what that last post was talking about, haven't had any problems gluing lights on.

[karajorma]

Thanks for that DTP. I`ll give it a try.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by EdrickV
Ok, I finally figured it out: You have to glue each turret (turret object + light) to the other turrets as siblings, then glue the combined turret group to the hull. Really odd, but it worked. Not entirely sure what that last post was talking about, haven't had any problems gluing lights on.

You sure that works? I tried it and it looked fine in modelview and PCS but as soon as I put the ship into fred I couldn`t choose any turrets.  Perhaps I`m missing something in PCS or the ships table. Perhaps not. All I know is the hierarchy for my ship looked nothing like that of the [v] ships I imported when I did that.

 Oh well back to FRED. He might be a pedantic B*****d but at least I can get him to do something. Hopefully when he releases it  Unkown Target's tutorial will be idiot proof enough that I can get somewhere.
  Till then I might make a few more ships but I`m not going to pull my own hair out trying to turret them.

EDIT. I Have given a name to my pain and it is cob2fs2! As soon as I tried using PCS to convert (my now grouped model) I managed to get a turret to work. Now I`ll see how many hairs I pull out trying to get multiple turrets to work!

[EdrickV]

I successfully made a 3 turret object (out of primatives) and put it in mission. About getting turrets to to work in FRED2, here are some tips:
1. If a turret shows up in FRED2 but you can't assign a weapon, it has an invalid default. Change it.
2. If a turret doesn't show up but is on the model, check the ships table entry.
3. Don't forget beams-free-all
4. Give a ship the "capital" flag for the most weapon options, even if it's an imobile thing like a sentry gun. (Probably not the only way, but it works)

Now comes the hard part: Destroyable turrets and multi-part turrets.

Going to try putting a turret on a rotating non-turret subsystem first, to see if I can.